Common names

Taxonomic notes

Description

Trees 10-20(25) m tall. Crown usually deep, wide and open with long, erect branches, but crown narrower and shallower in dense forest. Bark very flaky, peeling to reveal light greyish-green patches, similar to Pinus bungeana. Branchlets smooth, olive-green. Leaves in fascicles of 3, 6-10 cm long, finer than those of P. bungeana, spreading stiffly, sheaths falling after 1 year. Female cones 12-20 cm long, 10 cm wide when open, with wrinkled, reflexed apophyses and a umbo curved inward at the base. Seeds >2 cm long with a rudimentary wing (Farjon 1984, Richardson and Rundel 1998). The seeds are not shed but are retained by the wing adhering to the base of the scale above (Lanner 1996).

Distribution and Ecology

Himal: E Afghanistan, N Pakistan, India: Jammu-Kashmir, Tibet (Farjon 1998). Mostly grows in valleys at 2000-3350 m elevation (Farjon 1984), in the dry temperate forest of the inner ranges of the Himalaya, where the summer monsoon is weak and precipitation, mostly in the form of snow, rarely exceeds 1000 mm per year. In these forests it occurs with Cedrus deodara, Quercus ilex and Juniperus excelsa subsp. polycarpos (Bhattacharyya et al. 1988). Hardy to Zone 7 (cold hardiness limit between -17.7°C and -12.2°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001).

Big tree

Trees with a girth of up to 4 meters (approx. 127 cm dbh) are reported (Bhattacharyya et al. 1988).

Oldest

Trees over 300 years old are reported by Bhattacharyya et al. (1988). These were crossdated samples, but a more precise age was not reported.

Dendrochronology

Not a lot of work has been done. An exploratory study sampling trees from low, dry valley sites south of Kashmir found that most trees could be crossdated, though some specimens had too many missing rings (Bhattacharyya et al. 1988). Two later studies, also by Bhattacharyya, are listed on the Bibliography of Dendrochronology.

Ethnobotany

In Afghanistan, this species is cultivated for its edible seed (Farjon 1984), and efforts are underway to expand its economic utilization in India (Singh 1992, Singh and Chaudhary 1993). Elsewhere, native populations are ruthlessly exploited, with typically 100% of cones harvested. This harvest pressure is driven by subsistence and for the economic benefits that it provides; for example, in a good year, about 13,000 indigenous people in the Suleiman Mountains of Pakistan derive income from the nut harvest. As a consequence, there is virtually no natural regeneration of this species except in that very small fraction of its range (about 5%) where the species is inaccessible to significant human exploitation (Richardson and Rundel 1998).

Observations

Vladimir Dinets (e-mail, 2004.11.14) reports that there are trees near the Fairy Meadow trailhead out of Gilgit, Pakistan. The site can be reached by "a hired jeep, or from Raikot Bridge on the Karakoram Highway by hitchhiking (early morning only). Near the trailhead are some Pinus gerardiana, Juniperus semiglobosa and Cupressus torulosa, higher up - Pinus wallichiana and Picea smithiana (slim, but up to 50 m tall). At the Meadows (5.5 km from the trailhead) there is also some Juniperus communis and J. squamata. J. semiglobosa appears again at the timberline, 5 km past the Meadows."